Rising Temperatures: Wheat Production Takes a Hit in India

India's wheat production system is becoming increasingly more vulnerable to disaster, as a warmer climate presses in on the world.

Home to more than 1.2 billion people, India is the second most populated and developed country in the world. To feed its masses, India produced an estimated 95.85 million metric tons of wheat between 2013 and 2014, exporting only about 5.56 million metric tons of that supply to other countries.

According to a recent report, as of July 7, India's Department of Agriculture and Cooperation estimated that from 2014-2015 only 94.75 million metric tons of wheat will be produced despite zero imports as reported by the Department of Commerce.

This is partly due to predictions that wheat production will slow in the approaching years due to elevated temperatures.

Now, geographers at the University of Southampton have found evidence that supports this projection, discovering a link between increasing average temperatures in India and a reduction in wheat production.

"Our findings highlight the vulnerability of India's wheat production system to temperature rise, which is predicted to continue in the coming decades as a consequence of climate change," researcher Jadu Dash said in a recent statement. "We are sounding an early warning to the problem, which could have serious implications in the future and so needs further investigation."

Dash and his colleagues used satellite imagery taken at weekly intervals between 2002 and 2007 to measure crop yield and the overall health of the plant. The resulting observations were then compared to local climate data.

As detailed in the journal Global Change Biology, the researchers found that warming temperatures affected wheat most severely during reproductive and ripening periods, significantly hampering overall productivity of the crop.

Dash explained that while some wheat farmers are cleverly starting their growing season earlier so that the crop ripens in a cooler time of year, this is only a temporary measure.

"Our study shows that, over the longer period, farmers are going to have to think seriously about changing their wheat to more heat tolerant varieties in order to prevent temperature-induced yield losses," he said. "Currently in India, 213 million people are food insecure and over 100 million are reliant on the national food welfare system, which uses huge quantities of wheat. This underlines how crucial it is to consider what types of wheat need to be grown in the coming decades to secure production."

Interestingly, climate change isn't hurting all farmers. Nature World News recently reported how grazing crops in the tropics are actually benefiting from rising temperatures, growing faster and larger than ever before.